We made Applesauce!

We went to a local apple orchard last weekend and found a great apple peeler for a really decent price. We also found their section of “Number 2” apples that had a speck or two of black or bruise on them…for half price! We came home with 1/2 bushel each of Gala and Jonathan apples for the grand total of $12.50. Time to make applesauce!

S. concentrates as he turns the crank

The boys helped a little bit. The peeler also runs the apples through a coring blade and rotates them through a spiral slicing blade. The end result, in 20 seconds, is an apple ready to simply cut in half and throw into a cooking pot.

H. peels one too

So, we peeled and canned a bushel of apples over the course of two days…probably 5 to 6 hours work.

After a stock pot was full of sliced, cored, peeled apples, I added a few cups of water (slightly less might have worked too, I had to cook some off) and boiled / steamed them with the lid on until they were mushy.

I smashed them down with our Pampered Chef mashing device tool thingy and then blended them to a chunky consistency with a handheld blender. We still don’t have a food mill, but we wanted it chunky anyway…or so I was told.

At the end, we added a cup or two of sugar to taste, and cinnamon to some batches.

Home canned, homemade applesauce

Somewhere around 25 pints resulted, plus a few pints we ate right away in the kitchen. I processed the jars for 20 minutes in a boiling water bath and every one sealed.

2 responses to this post.

Yes, they enjoyed using it, but so did I. After a dozen 1/64th inch adjustments, it peeled the apples perfectly and efficiently. We were sort of amazed at the price…it was $19 I think and is built well enough we’ll get at least 5 or 6 seasons out of it, maybe a dozen. The blades will be the weakest links. If I could order another set for $8 or $9, I’m sure the whole machine would last twice as long.